A few days ago DiscoBlog flirted with the idea that collective policy would do better at fighting the nation’s obesity “epidemic” than individuals’ pure willpower. In the search for an effective policy, we have to agree with the skepticism from Scientific American’s blog about the recently accounced “vertical workstation” that lets you exercise as you toil away at your desk job.

You could pick apart so many aspects of the idea—isn’t it hard to walk and type at the same time?—but Sci Am does a pretty good job of it, and the picture at right should quash any lingering doubts.

In fact, it’s a bit mysterious that people are still working on this idea even though it’s been well-ridiculed for decades now. Remember the Execucisor (or however you spell that) from Woody Allen’s Bananas? I could only find this fragmento of the movie in Spanish on YouTube, but you get the gist:

Of course, they wouldn’t put out the releases if some news operation didn’t pick this stuff up.